


the difference between shooting stars and satellites

by fullmetallizard



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Adoption, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, M/M, original child character - Freeform, this is the first eruri I've had the courage to post pls be gentle
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-28
Updated: 2017-01-28
Packaged: 2018-09-20 10:06:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,430
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9486491
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fullmetallizard/pseuds/fullmetallizard
Summary: “But what if that doesn’t happen, Levi? What if instead we get a son or daughter? We’ve been talking about kids since we got married.” He was tugging at the hem of his shirt, not quite meeting Levi’s eyeline.“But is the possibility of that happening worth the risk?”“Yes,” Erwin answered immediately, looking him square in the eye.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I don't own snk although I think I deserve to considering all the pain it's put me through.

Levi had just fallen asleep on the couch when the phone rang. He groaned and rolled over, pulling a throw pillow over his head to try to block out the shrill ringing. He heard Erwin answer the phone from the kitchen but he couldn’t tell what he was saying as it was muffled through the pillow. He was also too tired to particularly care.

He’d just managed to doze off again when he felt his husband plop his giant body beside his legs.

“Lee,” he said, putting his hand on Levi’s hip.

Levi grunted in response, squeezing the pillow closer to his face.

“ _Levi_ ,” Erwin said in a stronger voice. He snatched the pillow away. Levi glared at him through squinted eyes. Even though his tone had been stern, there was a huge and downright unsettling grin on his face.

“What are you so damn chipper about?” He asked, wishing more than anything that he was asleep on their ugly brown sofa. Hideous, but comfortable.

“Lee,” he breathed out. “That was the adoption agency.”

The words didn’t even register at first. They’d done the application, paid the fees, and made a portfolio six years ago. The _incident_ happened two years after and they hadn’t heard a peep from the agency since. Levi had long since given up hope on it happening.

There was joy written clear across Erwin’s face, his eyes shining with what Levi believed were tears.

 _Just like before_ , his brain reminded him.

He swallowed down the fluttering hope and excitement in his throat. “What did they want?” He asked. “More money?”

“No,” Erwin’s impossibly wide grin somehow grew even larger. His grip on his hip tightened.  “Levi…there’s a baby. The birth mom waited until last minute to contact the agency and she’s almost due. She..she picked us.”

Joy and dread filled his body in equal parts. Levi took extra care to make sure neither of those things played out in his facial expressions. “Does she know we made that portfolio a thousand years ago and that we’re old as balls now?” That wasn’t actually true at all. Levi was just 32, Erwin 37.

Erwin’s cheeks grew a bit pink. “I may or may not have been updating the profile annually,” he admitted.

“Oh,” was all Levi could think to say.

“She wants to meet us for coffee.”

“When?”

“Tomorrow!” His enthusiasm was rolling off of him in waves.

Even though Levi’s heart was aching with hope and longing…he didn’t know if Erwin could handle a repeat of four years ago.  

“Honey,” Levi said as gently as he could, getting into a sitting position and taking his husband’s hand.

Erwin’s smile immediately fell. Though Erwin used pet names more often than he used Levi’s actual name, terms of endearment were rare for Levi. And they usually signaled that Erwin wouldn’t particularly like the conversation that followed.

“What is it? What could possibly be wrong? We’ve waited six years for a baby.”

“I know. I know that. But…Erwin, don’t you remember last time? I couldn’t get you out of bed for three days. You were crushed.”

“So were you,” Erwin stated. He didn’t say it with intent to harm. He was simply stating a fact.

“Yes,” Levi said, tone still as soft and as he could manage. “I was. But you suffered a lot harder and a lot longer.”

“But…this baby’s pretty much a done deal.”

“Okay. But the other baby was a done deal too. We were literally at the hospital to pick her up when we got the news.”

Despite how gentle he tried to be, Erwin still flinched, blue eyes wounded. Four years did little to lessen the sting. “Yeah,” he said gruffly, looking down at his hands.

“What if it happens again? What if this woman-“

“Mikasa,” Erwin interjected.

“What if _Mikasa_ has the baby and once she holds it she realizes she can’t bring herself to give it away? Where does that leave us? Heartbroken again?”

“But what if that doesn’t happen, Levi? What if instead we get a son or daughter? We’ve been talking about kids since we got married.” He was tugging at the hem of his shirt, not quite meeting Levi’s eyeline.

“But is the possibility of that happening worth the risk?”

“Yes,” Erwin answered immediately, looking him square in the eye.

There was silence for a few moments. Awkward pauses had an almost physical effect on Erwin. He couldn’t stand them. He fidgeted with his fingers for a bit before running a hand through his always immaculate blonde hair. Finally, he cleared his throat.

“Isn’t it worth it for you?” He asked so, so softly.

Levi was taken aback. Erwin always spoke clearly and purposefully, his tone never quiet or uncertain. Even when he was unsure, his voice never was.

“I’m…I’m not sure right now. I can’t…I could never forgive myself if you got hurt like that again.”

“It’s my choice to take that risk. I don’t need you to protect me, Levi. And I don’t want that.”

“What _do_ you want?”

“I want a baby,” He said, his voice cracking on the last word so slightly that Levi might have missed had they not been married for nine years.

The sound of it brought the sharp sting of tears to the backs of Levi’s eyes, Of course he wanted a kid. But he mostly wanted them because Erwin did.

Ever since they’d started dating in their early and mid-twenties, Levi had watched this man, who was seemingly made out of stone, turn into a pile of mush anytime he saw a baby in a stroller or a toddler in a highchair close to their table at a restaurant. Baby-babble fell out of his mouth at a pitch Levi hadn’t previously known a man of his stature could even produce in the first place.

And Levi could never quite bring himself to forget the day Erwin found out from an old friend that his ex-girlfriend Marie had a baby just a couple months after “the incident.” Erwin had grown completely silent for an entire half hour before managing, “she told me she never wanted kids.”

Levi looked over to his husband. Erwin had sunk into the couch and was chewing on the skin around his thumbnail, a habit Levi thought he’d kicked long before he’d turned thirty.

“Oh, hell,” Levi sighed. “What will it hurt to have coffee with her and at least hear her out?”

Erwin didn’t look over but he stopped gnawing on his thumb.

 _Good_ , Levi thought. He always thought was an especially gross habit.

“Really?”

“Really.”

Erwin donned his huge, unsettling grin once more. “Thank you, love.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Levi mumbled, standing and straightening his shirt. “Look, let’s go to bed. It’s ass ‘o clock at night and, like I said, we’re old as balls.”

Erwin let out Levi’s favorite belly laughed and then leaned over to plant a kiss on his lips.

…

Levi woke up early the next morning to loud clinking and swooshing sounds. He rubbed the sleep out of his eyes and rolled over in their queen-sized bed. He looked around, trying to figure out the source.

Erwin was taking shirts out of the closet. He would pick one up, study it, shake his head, and then toss it into a steadily growing pile behind him.

Once the sleepy haze around Levi’s brain cleared a little, he shot up in bed. “Hey!” He said. “Once you start doing the ironing, you can play 52 card pick-up with the shirts. But until that day, you stop it right now, Missy!”

“Missy” only slipped out when Levi was especially pissed off, a habit he’d never dropped from time spent with his foster-sister Isabel.

“I…uh, sorry,” Erwin said, looking over and rubbing the back of his head. “I just wanted to make a good impression.”

Levi plopped back down on his pillow, pretending the mess on his bedroom floor simply didn’t exist. “Wear the powder blue dress shirt with khakis. Brown loafers.” He didn’t comment that Erwin already dressed like a stereotypical father.

Erwin walked over and placed a kiss on Levi’s forehead. He lingered and Levi took the opportunity to inhale the scent of him- detergent, mint shampoo, and a hint of something Levi cold never quite place- something uniquely Erwin.

“I’m going to shower. I need to shave too. And I have to-“

“Erwin, relax. This isn’t a job interview. She doesn’t want to see you in professional mode. She needs to see you as a person. It’ll help her figure out what kind of dad you’ll be.”

Erwin let loose a shaky breath and gave a small smile. “Thank you, sweetheart.”

“Anytime. Now pick up the goddamn shirts,” he said with no actual venom in his voice.

Erwin smiled wider. “On it.”

While Erwin was in the shower, Levi dressed without really putting too much thought into it. He worked from home so he didn’t have work clothes like Erwin did. But he figured he couldn’t go wrong with dark wash jeans and a grey sweater.

Once they were in Erwin’s little blue Honda Civic, Levi could feel the nervousness seeping off of him. The air felt thick and tense, almost smothering.

“Hey, just relax,” Levi said, putting his hand on Erwin’s thigh.

“What if she doesn’t like me?”

“When has anyone on planet Earth ever not liked you?”

“Your uncle,” Erwin pointed out.

“My uncle is a homophobic piece of shit so he is irrelevant. Liking me is what we need to be concerned about.”

“Why do you say that?”

“I’m…difficult.”

Erwin sighed. “You’re not difficult. You put up a front of being…unpleasant so people are immediately turned off by you. That way, you’re in control of it. It won’t hurt like if they made up their mind about you on their own.”

Levi didn’t respond for a few seconds and then scoffed. “Where did you complete your psychiatric residency, again?”

Erwin smiled and shook his head and smiled. “All I ask is that you don’t say anything outright horrible.”

“Yes, Commander,” Levi said with an eyeroll.

Once they reached the small, somewhat dingy, café, Erwin pulled into a parking spot and pulled his phone out of his pocket. “She’s here,” he informed Levi. “She says that she’s ‘the pregnant one wearing a red scarf.’”

Levi swallowed down the wave of nerve-induced nausea and opened the passenger door to get out.

Erwin kept a hand on the small of Levi’s back as they walked into the dimly lit sitting area.

They immediately found Mikasa- much more girl than woman- sitting with her eyes cast down to the teabag she was swirling around her paper cup.

“Hello,” Erwin said, voice confident and comforting to Levi.

The girl looked up and gave a small smile that looked only slightly forced. She stood and accepted the hand that Erwin extended.

“Erwin Smith,” he grinned out.

“Mikasa Ackerman,” she replied softly before moving onto Levi.

A little jolt of surprise shot through Levi’s body but he offered his hand anyways.

“Levi Ackerman.”

It wasn’t just that they had the same name, they kind of looked alike. Same raven-black hair, charcoal-blue eyes, same perpetual frown.

Erwin looked confused as well but recovered quickly. “I’m going to get us drinks. Tea, love?”

“Yes. Green, please.”

Erwin nodded and went to stand in line.

Levi and Mikasa sat. She went back to fiddling with her teabag.

“Are we…are we related?” He asked.

Mikasa sighed and nodded. “We’re third cousins. But I didn’t know that when I picked you guys.”

“Why have we never met?”

“My parents died when I was nine and I was adopted by my godparents. After that I didn’t really meet any Ackermans.”

“So your baby is…related to me?”

“That _is_ how genetics work,” she said in a tone so dry he could have sworn it was his own. “And they’re not _my_ baby. They’re yours. If you want.”

She sounded so sure that Levi almost burst into tears. He allowed himself just a sliver of hope.

Erwin came back and sat in the chair next to him, handing him a paper cup. He took a sip of what Levi assumed was an Americano.

“So…do you have any questions for us?”

Mikasa started tracing a scratch on the wooden table they were sitting at. “Not really,” she said. “The portfolios are pretty thorough.”

“Are you sure?” Erwin asked.

“Erwin Smith, 37. You have a degree in business finance and you’ve worked for the same company since you graduated. Levi Ackerman, 32. You have two degrees in literature and you’re one of the most sought-after editors in the mid-west. You two have been married for nine years and dated almost three before that. Is that right?”

Erwin laughed while Levi scoffed at nearly his entire adult life being summed up in a few paragraphs.

“You’ve done your homework,” Erwin said.

“Do you have questions for me? The adoption counselor said I should answer anything I’m comfortable with, which is just about everything.”

“Why…why are you giving the baby up?” Erwin asked.

Mikasa took a deep breath. “I’m only nineteen. I’m still in school. I don’t even particularly want children. It’s just that…this isn’t the type of situation I want for them.”

“What about the dad?” Levi asked before he could stop himself. He ignored Erwin’s pointed look.

“He’s onboard with adoption. He’s not here because he’s travelling abroad. In Holland. He’s…he’s been best friends with me and my brother since we were little. He’s a good person. And he and his family are healthy so there’s no worry there.”

Levi nodded, satisfied with the answer.

“When are you due, Mikasa?” Erwin asked, taking a sip of his drink.

“Any day now. And I’m sorry. I hate to make you rush to get ready but I was just…confused and scared,” she admitted softly. Her brow was furrowed and her cheeks a little pink, like she hated to confess this to them.

“We won’t have to rush to do anything. You have nothing to worry about,” Erwin said, calmly.

Levi thought of the nursery they had in their house. Designed almost six years ago, with lots of light yellows, greens, and greys. Gender neutral colors, Erwin had said.

The room was empty for half a decade except the one time every couple of weeks Levi went in to clean it. Less out of hope and more at the horrifying thought of dust bunnies.  

Mikasa sighed and visibly loosened up at Erwin’s word. If Levi looked hard enough, he could have sworn she was smiling. 

…

They were woken to a call about five days later at three in the morning.

“Hello?” Levi mumbled, admittedly somewhat crankily into the phone.

“I’m calling for Mr. Smith or Mr. Ackerman? I’m a nurse at Maria Rose Hospital. I’m here with Ms. Ackerman.”

Levi’s throat swelled and he elbowed Erwin hard in the stomach so he’d sit up.

“Is everything okay?” He demanded.

“Oh, yes, yes. Everything’s moving along just fine. Mikasa asked if we would call you when we told her she could probably start pushing in an hour. She wanted to know if you’d like to come to the hospital so you could meet your child.”

Levi was already standing, holding the phone against his shoulder to wriggle into a pair of jeans. He motioned for his bleary-eyed husband to get up.

“Of course. We’re getting ready now and we should be there soon.”

He hung up as the nurse said by and turned to Erwin. “Mikasa’s in labor, she’s about ready to push.”

Suddenly, Erwin was wide awake.

There was a frenzy of putting on clothes. Erwin brushed his teeth and then went downstairs to search for the car keys while Levi brushed his.

He was thorough, his heart thumping hard in his chest. He had the urge to brush two more times and that was the moment it hit him: all this fear and apprehension wasn’t just concern for his husband.

He wanted this baby so much he could barely breathe.

He took a deep breath and out his toothbrush away, and took one look in the mirror. He hoped, with all his might that the next time he looked in the mirror, he’d be a father.

The ride to the hospital was quiet. Erwin had his free hand on Levi’s thigh and Levi had his fingers lightly laced with his husband’s.

“It’s all going to work out, Lee,” Erwin said for the third time.

Levi figured he had to be thinking of _the incident_ , when they were sitting in the waiting room, waiting for their potential daughter to be born, both nearly shaking with the excitement bubbling in their stomachs when a nurse came out and informed them that the mother decided she would be keeping the baby and it would be best if they left.

Erwin was muttering under his breath and Levi’s heart nearly broke in two when he could finally hear what he was saying…he was praying.

They burst into the hospital doors, nearly sprinting to a map to find the maternity ward. They made it and sat in a thin, hospital-stiff love seat and gripped each other’s hands. After a half hour, Levi was starting to nod off when a nurse approached them.

“Mr. Ackerman and Smith?” She asked, smiling kindly. “Would you like to come meet your son?”

 _Son._ The word echoed through his mind and spread a pleasant warmth throughout his chest. He opened his mouth to speak but nothing came out.

“We’d love to,” Erwin answered for him.

The nurse led them down the hall and then turned into room 104.

Mikasa was sitting up, holding a bundle. Her hair was mussed and her face red but she had a peaceful smile on her face staring down at the baby.

A flash of panic burst like the shitty fluorescent light bulbs in his eyes for a second.

“Look, honey,” Mikasa said to the baby. She looked up at them and gave them a wide, toothy smile. “These are your dads.”

The relief, love, and light filled Levi so quickly he was sure his chest would burst from the pressure of it all.

“Would you like to hold him?” Mikasa asked, stretching the baby forward a little.

“Lee,” Erwin smiled, “Would you like to do the honors?”

Levi nodded, still feeling a little dumbstruck he walked over to the hospital bed and held his arms out. He felt the damp, satisfying weight of the baby and he immediately adjusted the baby into a practiced hold. Those years of foster care taught him a few things, at least.

“He’s…he’s beautiful,” Levi whispered, looking up at Erwin who’d walked up behind him.

They studied his light dusting of coal dark hair and the dark bruised blue of his eyes, that would soon lighten to a shade similar to Erwin’s. The thought filled Levi with an unspeakable joy.

“Have you thought of a name?” Mikasa asked.

Levi started to shake his head when Erwin spoke up. “I have. I decided years ago that if we ever got a son, he should have a Hebrew name like Levi.” Erwin smiled at him. “I like Abel.”

“Abel,” Levi repeated in a whisper. “It’s…perfect.”

“You guys feel free to take him home whenever you’d like. He’s got a clean bill of health.”

“We don’t want you to be alone,” Levi said, shocking himself.

Mikasa smiled her smirk. “No, my brother and our friend are only about ten minutes away, I believe.” She reached for the iPhone on the table next to her. “Five. And…Armin doesn’t want to see Abel. He said it’ll hurt him and that’s the last thing I want.”

“As long as you’re sure,” Erwin said, a note of uncertainty in his tone.

“I’m positive. Take your son home,” she said gently.

“Mikasa…” Levi nearly whispered. “Thank you. You have no idea…what this-“

“No thanks necessary,” Mikasa said calmly. “I’m just happy he has a family.”

Levi nodded and then looked down at their new son, who’d started to snooze in his arms. “Well, Abel. Let’s take you to your aggressively pastel yellow nursery.”

Erwin hugged a stiff-backed Mikasa and they headed towards the door.

“Oh, by the way,” Mikasa called. She held up her phone. “Did you happen to catch the date?”

Levi and Erwin both shook their heads.

Mikasa grinned, “Happy Father’s Day.”


End file.
